Swatchless

This post is written while laundry dries all over my living room.  What a muddle.  My perfectly timed 8:00 PM laundry run was  more complicated than necessary–all of the machines were full (for the first time in my laundry history), and after waiting for 15 minutes I hijacked a washing machine that finished its cycle–I got my wash started in time (my building’s laundry room closes at 10PM)–but when it came time to dry it all, there was only one machine that was empty.

With my fingers crossed, I loaded 2 washing machines worth of clothes into one dryer–the one dryer that is missing a lint trap filter–but my money was already in by the time I realized that.  Needless to say, an hour later, I was faced with an oversized load of damp laundry which is currently drying in my living room.

In any case, I’m giving up on the laundry now, and focusing on my mitten in progress.  It’s my usual pattern, Fox and Geese from the book “Fox and Geese and Fences, a Collection of Traditional Maine Mittens” by Robin Hansen, and the yarn is from Topsy Farms on Amherst Island.  The pattern makes very sturdy mittens with long cuffs which I love.

Somehow now that it’s almost November it seems appropriate to be starting on mittens again.

This is my latest knitting project.  It is the hurricane hat, a nice quick knit with intuitive easy to follow instructions.  I knit it out of Cascade Ecological Wool, on 4.5mm needles with a 90 st. cast on.

It was very important that this hat be finished in time for Thanksgiving, because part of our crazy family tradition includes a swim in the lake.

This year, thankfully, the sun was shining and the water was a balmy 12 C, which encouraged us to actually swim.  Sometimes if it is really really cold on Thanksgiving we get in the very shallow water and lay down and call that a “swim”.  On some memorable occasions people have been known to don ski jackets and ancient fur coats and tiptoe through dustings of snow to take a dip.  My grandmother, who recently celebrated her 96th birthday, has graduated from swimmer to “lifeguard” on such family occasions, and enjoys (from a safe distance) how we youngsters carry on her ridiculous swimming traditions.

Sometimes along with all of us cousins and uncles and aunts, friends come to join in with our family celebrations–the brave ones take part in the swimming traditions along with us.  This hurricane hat was finished in time to warm up a very chilled swimmer!

After swimming, we enjoyed a turkey dinner with all the fixings, followed by pumpkin pie and lots of good conversation.  My next project took shape over the course of the afternoon–a pair of fox and geese mittens–the first of this season.  I have to keep reminding myself that it is indeed fall, and that the temperature will likely plummet any day now, and someone will certainly appreciate a new pair of mittens!

What a great day!  So many things to be thankful for–good weather, good friends, good food, health, peace and lots and lots of yarn!

What are you thankful for?

Today I got to meet a very special new little guy named Gavin.  He’s one month old, and very sweet.  I had been trying to decide what to knit for him, and had started several different projects until finally being inspired (by the Yarn Harlot’s recent baby knitting kick) to knit the striped and ever-so-slightly textured cardigan “Tulips”.  (Ravelry link)

He’s such a mellow baby….slept the entire time we were dressing him in the new outfit.  He’ll grow into it nicely by the time it’s getting cold enough to wear it!All of this knitting started on Saturday evening when I downloaded the pattern from Ravelry, and dove into the nearest yarn available–100% acrylic, machine washable/dryable, leftovers from the robotics hats I knit last winter.  The variety of purples and blues made a very nice combination, and the cream edging seemed to tie everything together really well.  I absolutely love the fact that there is NOTHING to sew up at the end, and just a few ends to weave in.

I was so excited by the pattern, the stripes, and the little bits of texture, that I created a hat to match.  Sometimes when a pattern takes hold of you it’s hard to stop–this is that kind of a knit.  I may have lost track of time on a few occasions, and ended up knitting ’til the wee hours of the morning.  I think the results are worth it, and I know that Gavin will be nice and warm this winter in his new outfit!

This past month I’ve been wrapping up loose ends at work and preparing for a choir tour (to England and Scotland) followed by an epic summer vacation in Europe (blogged here).

Part of my preparations include a highly top secret knitting project.  I got my Knitpicks order early in June and I’ve made pretty good headway.  Photos will be disclosed at a later date.  For now, admire the colours of Stroll Fingering weight yarn

There’s Midnight Heather and Peapod for one project.

and Dove Heather and Dusk for another.

I’m going to be knitting on the plane.  The Yarn Harlot says it is OK to do that.  I can’t find anything on the Air Transat site that says otherwise, so we’ll see how it goes.

My carry-on will be full of choir music, choir uniform, snacks, toiletries and knitting!

Blog updates here may happen over the summer, but will most likely be infrequent.  I’m doing my best to keep The Quest For The Midnight Sun blog updated so people don’t worry too much about me while I’m gone.

Wheels up July 1st.  The countdown is officially on!

Ever since knitting a hat for Woodie Flowers at the New York City Regional competition, I’ve been thinking about what would make a good hat for Dean Kamen.

People had mentioned that he wouldn’t wear it unless it matched with his denim ensemble.  The FIRST logo is very important to him, so that was incorporated, as was his name, and of course lots of robots!

During the competition, one of our mentors wore a hole in her jeans, and we sacrificed them for the cause.  The jeans were cut lengthwise in strips about 1/4 inch wide (any thinner and the fabric will fray too much, any thicker and it will not knit properly).  The denim strips are in the stripes at the top of the hat.

Knitting the hat was the easy part.  Finding Dean Kamen on the last day of Championships proved to be much more challenging.  After the final matches on Einstein, I headed out with another mentor in search of him.  We were lucky to meet Monica, a woman who works at FIRST in New Hampshire.  She told us that Dean had already left the building, but that she would pack up the hat and card, and be sure that he got them.

Thanks Monica!  We appreciate your helpful delivery.  We’re hoping that Dean will wear the hat, and take a photo to send to us, but we realize he’s a busy guy.

To see more of what we did at our competition, and to see the FIRST build season in a nutshell tune in to CNN, they’re airing a special about education and how special FIRST is.

Heading to St. Louis (19 hours on a bus) was great for sleeping and knitting.  The weather was stormy, and it was hard to see the arch as we approached.

This hat, number 50 was intended for Morgan Freeman…but we never ended up seeing him or hearing him at the competition.  Hat 50 will be repurposed for someone else sometime soon.

Hat 51 was created in the stands at the World Championships.We had an exciting time playing with and against the best robots in the world.  We met some of our old friends, and made new ones.

It turns out that several teams knit hats!  I’d like to think ours are the most unique out there, but I challenge all other teams to engineer creative hats for themselves.

We saw ASIMO the robot from Honda that can climb stairs, run, walk, and stand on one foot (as seen above).  It was such a great demonstration of highly skilled engineering and design.

Captain Canada and I had a walk and saw the arch in the sunshine…. and later in the trip we all were treated to a concert by the Black Eyed Peas.

It was an exciting time for all of us!

Before I knew it, hat 51 was complete!  The needles didn’t sit idle for long.  A hat for Dean Kamen was the next on the agenda.

While with the K-Botics team at the Greater Toronto Regional competition, hats 48 and 49 took shape.

Hat 48 did a number on my circulars–the cord snapped right off at the needle!  It’s a good thing I brought a back up pair!

The competition was the 10th anniversary of FIRST robotics in Canada.  It was really exciting to compete, and even more thrilling to win the Engineering Inspiration award which qualified us to compete at the World Championships in St. Louis.

Knitting has really caught on at robotics competitions–with our team at least.  At one point there were 4 or 5 of us knitting and cheering in the stands.

As the end of March approaches, my hat total is getting closer and closer to 50.  This is hat #47, knit for a boy who skateboards and has long hair.  He wanted a hat that would droop, and hopefully this one fits the bill.

What he doesn’t yet know is that the robot and team number glow in the dark!  K-Botics is getting ready for another competition next weekend.  I’m packing up my knitting needles and robotics yarn stash, and aiming for 50.

Last week, in New York with K-Botics, we met a man named Woodie Flowers.  He’s an important founding member and mentor for the FIRST robotics organization.  He models “G.P” (gracious professionalism) in his interactions and encouragement for our teams.  He asked us all to sign his shirt, and he chatted with us about our team and our robot for a while.  I had thought it would be fun to make him a hat, so we asked if that would be ok.  He got out his iPhone and used the caliper tool to measure out how big his ponytail is so we’d know how big a hole to put in the hat.  What a guy!

I knit through most of the day, and ended up with a hat by the end of it!

It had GP on the back by the ponytail hole, and Woodie written across the front.

We wrote him a thank you card for being such a good example for us.

I think he was pleased to get his new hat…

What do you think?

Yarn!  It’s great for knitting hats….here’s hat #45 (2nd one this weekend)

Our robot needed some rope to pull a part loose and deploy our minibot.  We took turns making a braided rope (similar to making friendship bracelets).  It’s cool that our team yarn ended up on our robot.

The yarn was also great for games of cats cradle that kept breaking out while waiting for something to happen…

Before long there were cats cradle games in the stands too!

So be sure, when you are packing for a competition, bring along a little yarn for you and your friends.